AUSTIN, Texas: Employees of the largest housing provider for unaccompanied migrant children in the US repeatedly sexually abused and harassed children in their care for at least eight years, the Justice Department said Thursday, alleging a shocking litany of offenses that took place as the company amassed billions of dollars in government contracts.
Southwest Key Programs Inc. employees, including supervisors, raped, touched or solicited sex and nude images of children beginning in 2015 and possibly earlier, the Justice Department said in a lawsuit filed this week. At least two employees have been charged since 2020.
The nonprofit organization is the largest provider of housing for unaccompanied migrant children, operating under grants from the US Department of Health and Human Services. It has 29 child migrant shelters — 17 in Texas, 10 in Arizona and two in California — with room for 6,350 children. The company’s largest shelter in Brownsville is at a converted Walmart with a capacity for 1,200.
Southwest Key disputed the accuracy of the claims in a written statement late Thursday.
The provider has been a major but somewhat low-profile player in the government’s response to the arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrant children traveling alone in recent years and during the separation of thousands of families in 2017 and 2018 under President Donald Trump’s administration. The government awarded the provider more than $3 billion in contracts from 2015 to 2023.
The Border Patrol must transfer custody of unaccompanied children within 72 hours of arrest to Health and Human Services, which releases most to parents or close relatives after short stays at Southwest Key or shelters operated by other contracted providers.
Health and Human Services reported 6,228 children at all of its facilities on June 17, according to the most recent data on its website, which does not break numbers down by shelter or provider. The department declined to say how many children are currently in Southwest Key’s care or if the agency continues to assign children to its facilities.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Austin, where Southwest Key is based, provides extensive details, saying authorities received more than 100 reports of sexual abuse or harassment at the provider’s shelters since 2015.
Among the suit’s allegations: An employee “repeatedly sexually abused” three girls ages 5, 8 and 11 at the Casa Franklin shelter in El Paso, Texas. The 8-year-old told investigators that the worker “repeatedly entered their bedrooms in the middle of the night to touch their ‘private area,’ and he threatened to kill their families if they disclosed the abuse.”
The suit also alleges that an employee of the provider’s shelter in Tucson, Arizona, took an 11-year-old boy to a hotel and paid him to perform sexual acts for several days in 2020.
Children were threatened with violence against themselves or family if they reported abuse, according to the lawsuit. It added that testimony from the victims revealed staff in some instances knew about the ongoing abuse and failed to report it or concealed it.
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said Thursday that the complaint “raises serious pattern or practice concerns” about Southwest Key. “HHS has a zero-tolerance policy for all forms of sexual abuse, sexual harassment, inappropriate sexual behavior, and discrimination,” he said in a statement.
Southwest spokesperson Anais Biera Miraclea said Thursday that the provider is still reviewing the complaint, which she said “does not present the accurate picture of the care and commitment our employees provide to the youth and children.”
Texas, like Florida, revoked licenses of facilities that house migrant children in 2021 in response to an extraordinary influx of people across its border from Mexico, creating what some critics said was an oversight void.
The lawsuit comes less than three weeks after a federal judge granted the Justice Department’s request to lift special court oversight of HHS’ care of unaccompanied migrant children. President Joe Biden’s administration argued that new federal safeguards rendered special oversight unnecessary 27 years after it began.
Special court oversight remains in place at the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the Border Patrol.
Leecia Welch, an attorney for unaccompanied children in the case for court oversight, said the allegations against Southwest Key are “absolutely disgusting” and blamed Texas’ revocation of licenses for “a powder keg waiting to explode.”
“While I applaud the efforts to right the grievous wrongs these children have experienced, I hope the federal government will also take some responsibility for the role it played,” said Welch, deputy legal director of Children’s Rights.
Neha Desai, another attorney involved in court oversight, called the allegations “profoundly disturbing and shocking.”
“I hope that the government takes the most aggressive measures possible to ensure that children currently placed at Southwest Key facilities are not in harm’s way,” said Desai, senior director for immigration at the National Center for Youth Law.
The Associated Press left email messages Thursday with the offices of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the attorneys general of Arizona and California.
Southwest grew as unaccompanied children began crossing the border in large numbers in 2014, overwhelming US authorities.
The company has found itself in the middle of controversies over immigration and has steadfastly maintained that its mission was to provide quality care for children. It names its facilities “casas,” Spanish for home.
“A typical day for children in a Southwest Key Casa includes breakfast, school, lunch, dinner, homework, snacks, and bedtime,” the Justice Department said in its complaint.
Largest housing provider for migrant children engaged in pervasive sexual abuse, US says
https://arab.news/c5md5
Largest housing provider for migrant children engaged in pervasive sexual abuse, US says
- US justice department charged the company and a number of its employees, including supervisors for the crimes
- The government awarded the provider more than $3 billion in contracts from 2015 to 2023
Ukraine halts transit of Russian gas to Europe after a prewar deal expired
- Ukraine’s energy minister said Kyiv had stopped the transit “in the interest of national security”
- Until now, Russian natural gas kept flowing through Ukraine’s pipeline network after the 2022 invasion
KYIV, Ukraine: Ukraine on Wednesday halted Russian gas supplies to European customers through its pipeline network after a prewar transit deal expired at the end of last year.
Ukraine’s energy minister, Herman Halushchenko, confirmed on Wednesday morning that Kyiv had stopped the transit “in the interest of national security.”
“This is a historic event. Russia is losing markets and will incur financial losses. Europe has already decided to phase out Russian gas, and (this) aligns with what Ukraine has done today,” Halushchenko said in an update on the Telegram messaging app.
At a summit in Brussels last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed that Kyiv would not allow Moscow to use the transits to earn “additional billions ... on our blood, on the lives of our citizens.” But he had briefly held open the possibility of the gas flows continuing if payments to Russia were withheld until the war ends.
Russia’s Gazprom said in a statement on Wednesday morning that it “has no technical and legal possibility” of sending gas through Ukraine, due to Kyiv’s refusal to extend the deal.
Even as Russian troops and tanks moved into Ukraine in 2022, Russian natural gas kept flowing through the country’s pipeline network — set up when Ukraine and Russia were both part of the Soviet Union — to Europe, under a five-year agreement. Gazprom earned money from the gas and Ukraine collected transit fees.
Before the war, Russia supplied nearly 40 percent of the European Union’s pipeline natural gas. Gas flowed through four pipeline systems, one under the Baltic Sea, one through Belarus and Poland, one through Ukraine and one under the Black Sea through Turkiye to Bulgaria.
After the war started, Russia cut off most supplies through the Baltic and Belarus-Poland pipelines, citing disputes over a demand for payment in rubles. The Baltic pipeline was blown up in an act of sabotage, but details of the attack remain murky.
The Russian cutoff caused an energy crisis in Europe. Germany had to shell out billions of euros to set up floating terminals to import liquefied natural gas that comes by ship, not by pipeline. Users cut back as prices soared. Norway and the US filled the gap, becoming the two largest suppliers.
Europe viewed the Russian cutoff as energy blackmail and has outlined plans to completely eliminate Russian gas imports by 2027.
Russia’s share of the EU pipeline natural gas market dropped sharply to about 8 percent in 2023, according to data from the EU Commission. The Ukrainian transit route served EU members Austria and Slovakia, which long got the bulk of their natural gas from Russia but have recently scrambled to diversify supplies.
Gazprom halted supplies to Austria’s OMV in mid-November over a contractual dispute, but gas flows through Ukraine’s pipelines continued as other customers stepped in. Slovakia this year inked deals to begin buying natural gas from Azerbaijan, and also to import US liquefied natural gas through a pipeline from Poland.
Among the hardest-hit will be EU candidate country Moldova, which was receiving Russian gas via Ukraine and has brought in emergency measures as residents brace for a harsh winter and looming power cuts.
Separately from Kyiv’s decision to let the transit deal expire, Gazprom said last month it will halt gas supplies to Moldova starting on Jan. 1, citing unpaid debt. Gazprom has said Moldova owes close to $709 million for past gas supplies, a figure the country has fiercely disputed, citing international audits.
Heating and hot water supplies were abruptly cut off on Wednesday to households in Transnistria, Moldova’s breakaway region that has for decades hosted Russian troops, as Russian natural gas stopped flowing to the territory, local transit operator Tiraspoltransgaz-Transnistria said.
In an online statement, the company urged residents to gather household members together in a single room, hang blankets over windows and balcony doors, and use electric heaters. It said some key facilities including hospitals were exempt from the cuts.
On Dec. 13, Moldova’s parliament voted in favor of imposing a state of emergency in the energy sector, as fears mounted that the gas shortages could trigger a humanitarian crisis in Transnistria, for decades dependent on Russian energy supplies.
Many observers have predicted that the looming energy shortage could force people in the separatist territory to travel to Moldova proper, seeking basic amenities to get through the harsh winter and placing further strain on resources.
Moldova, Ukraine and EU politicians have repeatedly accused Moscow of weaponizing energy supplies.
On Wednesday, Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski called Ukraine’s move to halt supplies a “victory” for those opposed to the Kremlin’s policies. In a post on X, Sikorski accused Moscow of systematic attempts to “blackmail Eastern Europe with the threat of cutting off gas supplies,” including through a Baltic pipeline bypassing Ukraine and Poland and running directly to Germany.
Slovakian PM Robert Fico Slovakia’s Prime claimed Wednesday that the end of gas flows via Ukraine “will drastically affect us all in the EU but not Russia.”
Fico, whose views on Russia have sharply differed from the European mainstream, has previously hit out at Kyiv’s refusal to extend the transit deal, and threatened to end electricity supplies to Ukraine in response.
Moscow can still send gas to Hungary, as well as non-EU states Turkiye and Serbia, through the TurkStream pipeline across the Black Sea.
The steady reduction of Russian gas supplies to European countries has also spurred them to hasten the integration of Ukraine’s energy grids with its neighbors to the west.
Last week, private Ukrainian energy utility DTEK said it had received its first shipment of liquefied natural gas from the US, to be delivered through a newly expanded network spanning six countries from Greece to Ukraine – and marking a significant step in reducing regional dependence on Russian energy.
Separately, overnight into New Year’s Day, Russia launched a drone strike on Kyiv that left two people dead under the rubble of a damaged building, according to the city administration. At least six people were wounded across the Ukrainian capital, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
Russian shelling also killed a man and wounded two women in Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson, regional authorities reported.
Mother’s fight for education breaks disability stigma in rural Bangladesh
- Rikta Akter Banu is featured on BBC’s 2024 list of 100 inspiring women
- She founded Rikta Akter Banu Learning Disability School in Kurigram in 2010
DHAKA: After three years of struggling to enroll her autistic daughter in a local school, Rikta Akter Banu had had enough. Refusing to accept the constant rejections, she decided to build her own school instead.
It all started in 2007, when Bristi Moni, now 23, was going to start her education. Having also cerebral palsy, which sometimes causes drooling, she was rejected by primary school teachers.
“When I first tried to admit Moni in 2007, I was told that children with special needs are not enrolled in general schools. But Moni was very eager to attend school. I tried again the following year, but once again my attempt failed,” Banu, a senior nurse, told Arab News.
She then traveled to Dhaka to the Ministry of Education and learned that every primary school had a quota to admit five children with disabilities. She cited the rule as she approached her local school again.
But despite the government rule, the authorities had not equipped the schools with the logistics and human resources needed to care for children with disabilities and she was requested to provide an attendant for her daughter. For some time, one of Moni’s friends, also a student, would help but the arrangement was not sustainable.
In 2009, Banu started building a school on her own.
“I was not ready to give up,” she said. “My husband donated a piece of ancestral land to build the school. To help with the construction, I sold a piece of land that I had inherited from my father. In total, it cost me around $8,000 to build the school.”
In 2010, the Rikta Akhter Banu Learning Disability School in Chilmari, Kurigram district opened its doors to the first batch of students.
Initially built for children who are autistic or have a learning disability, it now enrolls 300 students with different intellectual and physical disabilities.
“We teach the students various sign languages, body language, sports, music, sewing, and more. In addition, we provide them with primary health care, meals, and other services. We offer education up to grade 5,” Banu said.
“Our school is registered with the Department of Social Welfare, and as such, our curriculum is also approved by the authorities. A total of 21 teachers and support staff work at our school, with a portion of their salaries paid by the government.”
About 4.3 million Bangladeshis live with different types of disabilities. More than 50 percent of them have not received any kind of education.
The 2021 National Survey on Persons with Disabilities shows that only 23 percent of them have completed primary school.
Banu strives to expand the reach of her school. To run the institution, she spends about $2,500. As government support is limited, much of the amount comes from her own savings, contributions from teachers, and external donors.
“I dream of running a school with residential arrangements for all children with disabilities, so that children from distant areas can enroll here. Sometimes, family members hide these children away at home,” she said.
“My dream is that these children will receive an education and life skills while staying here, and find good livelihood opportunities with dignity. I hope the reputation of this school will spread across the country and around the world, so that many others will come forward to support learning opportunities for children with disabilities. They need cooperation and support, not sympathy.”
Last month, the Rikta Akhter Banu Learning Disability School was recognized for making a “positive impact on the community’s views around disability,” as Banu featured on the BBC’s 2024 list of 100 inspiring women.
It is also recognized at home but needs more support to flourish.
“Her school has become a symbol of possibility, showcasing how local solutions can address systemic challenges. Rikta’s work has not only provided education to children with disabilities but also changed perceptions within her community, fostering greater acceptance and understanding,” said Safi Rahman Khan, director of education, skills development and migration at Bangladesh’s largest development organization, BRAC.
“Her work is a testament to the power of inclusion and a call to action for us all to invest in initiatives that promote accessibility, opportunity, and respect for every individual. By supporting leaders like Rikta, we can create a future where no child is left behind, and every person can contribute to a more equitable and compassionate society.”
Driver ‘hell-bent on carnage’ kills 10, injures 30 on New Year’s Day in New Orleans
- Attack occurred around 3:15 a.m. Wednesday along Bourbon Street, known worldwide as one of the largest destinations for New Year’s Eve parties
- “He was hell-bent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did,” said Police Commissioner Anne Kirkpatrick
NEW ORLEANS: A driver in a pickup truck who officials said was “hell-bent on carnage” sped through a crowd of pedestrians in New Orleans’ bustling French Quarter district, killing 10 and injuring 30 in an act being investigated as a New Year’s Day terrorist attack.
The attack occurred around 3:15 a.m. Wednesday along Bourbon Street, known worldwide as one of the largest destinations for New Year’s Eve parties, and with crowds in the city ballooning in anticipation for the Sugar Bowl college football playoff game at the nearby Superdome later in the day.
“He was hell-bent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did,” said Police Commissioner Anne Kirkpatrick. She said police officers would work to ensure safety at the Sugar Bowl, indicating that the game would go on as scheduled.
“It was very intentional behavior. This man was trying to run over as many people as he could,” Kirkpatrick said.
Officials did not immediately provide an update on the status of the driver, whether there was an ongoing threat to the public or offer a suspected motive in the fatal incident at the city’s famed Canal and Bourbon Street early Wednesday.
Alethea Duncan, an assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s New Orleans field office, said officials were investigating the discovery of at least one suspected improvised explosive device at the scene.
Officials did not immediately provide an update on the status of the driver, whether there was an ongoing threat to the public or offer a suspected motive.
NOLA Ready, the city’s emergency preparedness department, said the injured had been taken to five local hospitals. A police officer was among the injured.
The White House said President Joe Biden has been briefed.
US military appeals court says plea deals related to 9/11 attacks may proceed
- In August, US defense secretary rescinded plea deals Pentagon had entered into with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accomplices
- Under plea deals, it is possible that three men could plead guilty to 9/11 attacks and in exchange not face the death penalty
WASHINGTON: A US military appeals court has ruled that plea deals related to the man accused of masterminding the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and two accomplices can proceed after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had earlier moved to invalidate the agreements.
In August, Austin rescinded plea deals that the Pentagon had entered into with the trio, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
In November, a US military judge ruled that Austin acted too late on revoking the plea deals and that they were still valid. The order late on Monday by the US military appeals court upheld that ruling.
The Pentagon declined to comment. It has previously said Austin was surprised by the plea deals and that the secretary was not consulted because that process is independent.
Under the deals, it is possible that the three men could plead guilty to the attacks and in exchange not face the death penalty.
Mohammed is the most widely known inmate at the US detention facility known as Guantanamo Bay on the coast of Cuba. It was set up in 2002 by then-US President George W. Bush to detain foreign militant suspects following the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
Mohammed is accused of masterminding the plot to fly hijacked commercial passenger aircraft into the World Trade Center in New York City and into the Pentagon. The 9/11 attacks, as they are known, killed nearly 3,000 people and plunged the US into a two-decade war in Afghanistan.
Human rights experts, including at the United Nations, have condemned torture at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere during the so-called war on terror and demanded an apology from Washington. Former President Barack Obama acknowledged in 2014 that the US had engaged in torture and said it was “contrary to our values.”
Separately on Monday, the Pentagon said that Ridah Bin Saleh Al-Yazidi, one of the longest-held detainees at Guantanamo Bay, was repatriated from the detention facility to his home country of Tunisia. He was held without charge for over 20 years.
The Pentagon said 26 detainees remained at the facility, of whom 14 are eligible for transfer.
South Korea to send Jeju Air crash black box to US
- South Korean and US investigators, including from Boeing, have been combing the crash site in southwestern Muan
- Officials initially pointed to a bird strike as a possible cause of the disaster
Seoul: South Korean investigators probing a Jeju Air crash which killed 179 people in the worst aviation disaster on its soil said Wednesday they will send one of the retrieved black boxes to the United States for analysis.
The Boeing 737-800 was carrying 181 people from Thailand to South Korea Sunday when it issued a mayday call and belly-landed before hitting a barrier and bursting into flames, killing everyone aboard except two flight attendants pulled from the burning wreckage.
South Korean and US investigators, including from Boeing, have been combing the crash site in southwestern Muan since the disaster.
“The damaged flight data recorder has been deemed unrecoverable for data extraction domestically,” said South Korea’s deputy minister for civil aviation, Joo Jong-wan.
“It was agreed today to transport it to the United States for analysis in collaboration with the US National Transportation Safety Board.”
Joo earlier said both of the plane’s black boxes were retrieved, and for the cockpit voice recorder “the initial extraction has already been completed.”
“Based on this preliminary data, we plan to start converting it into audio format,” he said, meaning investigators would be able to hear the pilots’ final communications.
The second black box, the flight data recorder, “was found with a missing connector,” Joo said.
Officials initially pointed to a bird strike as a possible cause of the disaster, but they have since said the probe was also examining a concrete barrier at the end of the runway, which dramatic video showed the Boeing 737-800 colliding with before bursting into flames.
They also said that a special inspection of all Boeing 737-800 models operated by local carriers was examining their landing gear after questions over a possible mechanical failure in the crash.
The ongoing inspections are “focusing mainly on the landing gear, which failed to deploy properly in this case,” said the director general for aviation safety policy, Yoo Kyeong-soo.
Local media reported the landing gear had deployed properly on Jeju Air Flight 2216’s first failed landing attempt at Muan airport before failing on the second.
The issue “will likely be examined by the Accident Investigation Board through a comprehensive review of various testimonies and evidence during the investigation process,” the ministry of land, which oversees civil aviation, said at a briefing.
At Muan airport, hundreds of people queued up Wednesday — a public holiday in the South — to pay their respects at a memorial altar set up to honor the victims.
So many people came to the memorial that the queue stretched for hundreds of meters and the local cell phone network was overloaded, local media reported.
Local officials sent out a safety alert asking mourners to go to a different memorial, as the one at the airport was too busy. Other altars for the victims have been set up nationwide.
Inside the airport, where families have been camped out since the accident, a medical space has been set up to administer IV drips to grieving relatives, many unable to eat due to stress, an official said during a briefing.
Officials have said the bodies were extensively damaged by the crash, making the work of identifying remains slow and immensely difficult, while investigators had to preserve crash-site evidence.
But the country’s acting president Choi Sang-mok, who has been in office less than a week, said Wednesday the process had finally been completed, and that more bodies had been handed over to relatives so that they could hold funerals.
“Our investigators, along with the US National Transportation Safety Board and the manufacturer, are conducting a joint investigation into the cause of the accident,” Choi said at a disaster response meeting.
“A comprehensive analysis and review of the aircraft’s structure and the black box data will reveal the cause of the accident,” Choi added.
The US investigators had arrived Monday and headed straight to Muan, with the initial on-site joint probe focusing on a navigation system known as a localizer that assists in aircraft landings.
The localizer, installed on a concrete structure at Muan International Airport, is the barrier that has been blamed for exacerbating the severity of the Jeju Air crash.
The plane was largely carrying holidaymakers back from year-end trips to Bangkok, with all passengers Korean nationals except for two Thais.
